The drama film All My Puny Sorrows. had its world premiere at the 2021 Toronto International Film Festival. Following the screening, we attended a roundtable with stars Alison Pill and Mare Winningham and writer-director Michael McGowan.
“Based on Miriam Toews’ novel, it follows two sisters: a suicidal concert pianist and a writer grappling with her sister’s decision to end her life, leading to self-discovery.”
Media: For Mare and Alison, what was it that drew you to these roles?
Alison Pill: It’s very hard to make art, and it’s even harder to make good art. In reading a screenplay, and first of all you read to the end, it’s like, well, this is already better than a lot of them, and then to be left with questions, feelings. Then there’s an extra special time when you’re kind of like yeah, I think I can bring something to this, I can lay myself on the table and say this is me, it’s all out there.
So, the opportunity came, and reading All My Puny Sorrows was an opportunity that doesn’t come around often. The quality of the writing, the dialogue, and in the inimitable way that Yoli is, I was like yeah, this is a beautiful chance, a miraculous moment to be able to do.
Mare Winningham: I’ve always been really judgy on writing. I just make a decision, I read the screenplay, I’m too judgy. It’s getting worse as I get old, but I had it even when I was younger. I just think it’s either good writing or it’s not, and I decide to do it if it’s good and decide to pass if I can’t bear the writing.
Media: Michael, in the director’s statement interviews, you mentioned you don’t normally use the rehearsal process. How important was adding that to this film? For Alison and Mare, how important was it to get into those family connections? I feel like those performances are so quick-witted and paced well because it’s obvious everyone came into it prepared.
Michael McGowan: So, the rehearsals, I think I would always do this on films coming up. You know, sometimes when you’re directing on a television show and do a table read, and I don’t feel like I get anything out of it, it’s just words washing over. But really trying to nail down, especially the big Elf and Yoli scenes, where each one was and be precise, and really answered a lot of questions and just made it so much better than if we hadn’t.
You know, on set you don’t have a lot of time, there’s a pressure to make your day, there are people waiting around, everybody is just aware of that ticking clock. Rehearsal just allows you to play a little bit more and to be open to, is this the best it can be…I think it just got better with the rehearsal process.
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Alison Pill: For me, I’ve been acting for 25 years, and when I started doing theater, I recognized, oh shit, I thought I was acting before and didn’t know (laughs). It just provided an entirely new opportunity, so I fight for table work all the time, and if it’s not afforded to me officially, within whatever framework I’m given, I will make my own time.
Thankfully, Sarah (Gadon) and Mare were up for it, Sarah especially. We like to interrogate work. We like to spend time on it. There’s real freedom to having your lines in your bones, especially when you have twenty days to shoot things, and in my case, it was sort of a selfish thing.
In the two weeks in quarantine before shooting, I was going to take this opportunity because I have a four-year-old kid, so after a full day of work, I’m not going to have a ton of time to look at lines. I’m in almost every scene in this movie, so I’ll take any rehearsal I can get.
Media: Michael and Alison, I wanted to ask about the parking garage scene. To say that was explosive would be an understatement. Was that scene completely scripted, or was anything improvised?
Alison Pill: There are a few scenes I felt hit; they are in the book as well. I felt a few of them, in terms of the sequencing, there’s the stuff with sad Jason, just those moments of the humor coming through this tragic comedy, but I guess I always read it that way. I read that scene, and I know that breaking point. I know it very well, and I don’t think people have enough experience with female rage. I feel angry a lot of the time (laughs), and Mike on stage last night was like, nobody knew it was going to go that far, but I don’t know how you write that fucking scene and don’t know it’s going to go that far.
Michael McGowan: For clarification, you made a pretty good point there, but really, the turn for me that was not scripted was when you went back to the car and was pounding the car. Obviously, she’s pissed, she’s losing it, that was meant to be, then the turn, when you go back to the car, where you were railing against the world there, that scene could have ended with the fuck you, fuck your insurance, and all that and walked away.
The brilliance of that performance was the rage that was building and the release against the car, which was not scripted, so that was a surprise to me as the director.
Alison Pill: It was also really cool, and this is a shout-out to Daniel, our wonderful DP, who loaded up the camera. He and Mike giving me the physical freedom to take it wherever it may go, that was also really special, to feel supported and safe amidst all of this, it was really great.
Media: One of the things I really enjoyed about the film was how this family deals with dark subjects with a lot of humor, which is how my family deals with tragedies. Could you see some of your own experiences in the way these characters went through this process?
Michael McGowan: It was certainly in the book and one of the things that absolutely attracted me to try and make this, because I didn’t want this to be a relentless film. There had to be this levity and hope that I think is distilled in the book, and I think Miriam (Toews) and I have a similar sense of humor, so the rhythms of that and the adaptation was easy for me to sort of take and use and also elaborate on.
Alison Pill: I think without humor I would die, it would all be too much. I think about the moments in my life that are so full of grief that if you only felt the grief, it would just be too much. Luckily, the universe will also provide you with a glimpse, like even just a sliver of something, that you can sort of grab onto and laugh at it you find your way through.
With death and with sadness, all of those things, we are connected by love, there is also such a deep soul connection to find. I think about the moments where you can be in situations with a stranger, especially now with everybody in masks, outside the hotel, the first day I got here, there was a tiny dog carrying a branch, a tree branch, watching that can lift your day and finding those moments of joy is sort of the joy of Miriam and her family.
Media: Michael, what was the most challenging aspect of the production?
Michael McGowan: That’s an easy one for us. Shooting in a pandemic was an amazing get for us to do, but the most challenging thing was the fear of getting shut down. If we had had three positive COVID test results, we would have been forced to shut down. We had three false positives, so it was never far from my mind that we’re on day one, nineteen to go. So, would we actually get the film done was the greatest singular challenge for me, mentally, because the rest of it was beautiful.
We had a wonderful crew, and I think it just was a set that everyone appreciated in making the film, and it felt to me there was a lot of kindness and a situation where we let everyone do the best work they can possibly do. I don’t mean to say the challenge was hard, but I didn’t sleep well during the production, thinking of COVID. We lost a location due to an outbreak, so it was always there looming, but thankfully, we were able to film through to the end.
Alison Pill: Some productions it’s just kismet. I mean, we lost that location but gained the hospital location where sunsets and trains, rolling slowly through the fucking background (laughs). Making independent films in any year is difficult so to add this to it, with the possibility of insurance and whatever, we were blessed in those amazing ways, just those re-directs, those trains running through the background.
Media: Was there a specific scene that any of you particularly loved that had to be cut from the final film?
Mare Winningham: When I first read this, I realized I did not have a scene with Elf, and I was upset about it. This was before we went to film, I went to Michael and said, I can’t go be mom in this movie, lose a child, and not have a scene with her, I think it’s important we see the mom with her daughter. So, he wrote this beautiful scene; it was tiny and perfect. Elf asked me about a poem and asked me to recite it and what it meant to me, and it seemed to be such an important scene to me.
Not only did I get what I asked for, but it added a whole layer to my character, dealing with blame and shame and fear, but it was poetry and we had too much of it in the movie, so it had to go.
Michael McGowan: It was a beautiful scene and Mare’s instincts were absolutely correct and we kept trying to place it, where is it going to go, what feels right. It just tipped the balance of too much, too literary and for a movie, it’s always what the rhythm demands, so it’s always interesting.
Media: Michael, can you talk about the editing, the importance of when to hold onto a scene, and when you needed that cut?
Michael McGowan: Yeah, on the surface it’s a pretty simple little story but because of the fluidity between past and present, and sometimes the future, there’s a language where I didn’t want to use a lot of transition shots, where I wanted you to feel like you could go to these places. In editing, it’s a rhythm thing, there’s no right answer. It’s interesting, I had two editors, so we actually had three voices in there and sort of problem-solving with another voice.
Everybody is so deeply invested in the film, so what we did was put everything through an intellectual wringer first, and then you think, how long should the hug be between Yoli and Nora, so you just know in your bones if its right and then you move on. Obviously, it changes as the cuts evolve, you think you’re done and then eight weeks later, after seeing it on the big screen, you’re amazed at how much more you’ve refined it and changed it.
Media: Mare, there’s a point in the film where your character says, “Letting go of grief is harder than the grief itself,” that’s a really important line. You had a couple of scenes with Alison where you just had to let go. As an actor, are those hard scenes to prepare for?
Mare Winningham: I love that you just asked that; it’s the reason I wanted to do the movie. I wanted to say those words, that letting go of grief is harder than the grief itself. I think it’s a really extraordinary thing that Miriam is telling us, then that leads to, of course, then you have to go on. I think it’s a love story, between the two sisters, and I believe that, which I why I think Miriam put her heart out there, to honor the love for her sister, which suicide can explode.
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Acting those scenes, in some ways, is the easiest thing there is because they are the truth of the matter. We shot my sort of recollection of Elf’s smile and my dead husband’s smile being the same, that sort of outburst, we shot it earlier in the schedule than Yoli’s outburst scene at the end of the film and that was a crazy day. I couldn’t believe we were going to go into it. There was something weird that day that made me worried for Alison, and what was going to be required of her, but there we were, we shot the scene and it was perfect.
Perfect in time for those two characters, completely realized, so acting it was as simple as being. My concerns for her and what she had to go to dissipated because she was in, and we were doing it. Sometimes, the silliest things, like walking across the street or shooting something inconsequential, are the most difficult scenes, and those big, heavy, beautiful monsters are the ones that just come out.
Media: There has been a stigma over the years when it comes to discussing mental health, and this film touches on suicide and its impact on family members. What do you hope viewers take away from watching the film?
Michael McGowan: I would say just the humanity, the complexity, the impossibility of those situations, that there are no right answers, no judgment. That’s probably one of the things I would hope.
Mare Winningham: There is nothing as whole as a broken heart.
Media: Michael, you mentioned it was tough shooting during COVID, but getting to shoot in North Bay, was there anything about that location that really stood out?
Michael McGowan: Yeah, it was a great place to shoot. We could move around so quickly, there was not a lot of traffic, and then it was really fun for me to take some scenes, like the D.H. Lawrence scene we shot in the train tracks. It was supposed to be outside of her house in the script, but it was going to work so much better visually there, so those kinds of things, the ease of moving around, it was the look we were going for. It was just a joy to shoot there.
